Diet Meal Delivery - Nutrisystem, Medifast, Jenny Craig, Etc - Styrofoam container disposal

Those of you getting food deliveries in styrofoam, what do you do with the coolers? Can't recycle them curbside and the nearest place to take them for recycling is MILES away. I'd like to sign up for a meal delivery service, but can't stand the thought of all that sytrofoam just ending up in the landfill.

Is styrofoam even recyclable? On trash day, we have a bin for regular trash and another bin for recyclables. I assume I have to put the styrofoam in the regular trash. I'm struggling with this issue to.

I dont get these from meals, but my inlaws send us fish in whats called a fish box. A long Styrofoam cooler in a cardboard box. We reuse the Styrofoam coolers. We have 2 at any given time. One we send back to them, and one we keep for ourselves. We use them for shopping, camping, parties, all kinds of stuff.

I do not believe its recyclable at all, but I am not 100% sure because we do not have garbage service where we live.

Foamed polystyrene for containers ("Styrofoam" is a Dow trademark specific to their insulating sheathing for buildings) is recyclable. It is recycling code #6. However, you need to check with your local recycler to see if they accept it.

Unfortunately lots of things are recyclable, but not accepted at a particular recycling center. Definitely call first before making the drive.

I knew other people would know. We dont have a recycling center or anything of the like around here. The people in town with garbage service are starting to recycle now, but out here in the country we dont have garbage service and it isnt worth the extra fees. We go to the dump.

I am saving a number of them to use with my Hurricane supplies.. they keep them nice, clean and are easy to stack in my garage and if and when we get a storm they can hold my frozen food from my freezer for DAYS. I have also shared a number of them with friends who place one in their trunk to bring home the groceries and ice cream.
One friend took a few as her hubby wanted to slice the sides off of the boxes to use the foam to insulate an outdoor storage shed.. He put them in the rafters and some of the walls to help with the heat.. so all and all many of them have really been put to use.

I just received my first delivery of Freshology GetSlim and was surprised that it wasn't in a styrofoam box! There was one piece of styrofoam on one side of the box, but the rest was enclosed in a puffy thermobag , inner plastic bag, and frozen reusable blocks throughout to keep it cold. The meals are fresh, not frozen, but even fresh deliveries usually come in a Styrofoam box. I hope this trend spreads.

Go to www.earth911.org and see if you have a styrofoam recycling center near you. Sadly I don't, but hopefully more will come up in the future.

Awesome link Suzanne! There is a place that's far away from me (50 miles) but if I'm on the program long enough, I'm sure I'll have quite a stockpile of styrafoam, and can take it down there whenever I'm next passing through that city. Thank you!